Oak  Street 
UNCLASSIFIED 


Volume 


JULY,   19 IS  Number  4 

Published  by  Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 
Issued  Quarterly 


BULLETIN  OF 


RANDOLPH  -  MACON 
WOMAN'S  COLLEGE 


LYNCHBURG,  VA. 


THE  SOUTHERN  WOMAN:     PAST  AND  PRESENT 

BY 

Edwin  Mims 
Professor  of  English  y  VanJerbilt  Un't<versity 


rOFiU 


Entered   as   second-class   matter,   January    5,    1915,    at   the   post-office    at   Lynchhurg, 
Virginia,  under  the  Act  of  August  24,   1912. 


BULLETIN 


OF 


Randolph-Macon 
WOMAN'S  College 


THE  SOUTHERN  WOMAN:     PAST  AND  PRESENT 

BY 

Edwin  Mims 
Projessor  of  English^  Vanderbilt  Uni-versity 


Published    by    Randolph- Nf aeon    Woman's    College 
Lynchburg,  Va. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/southernwomanpasOOmims 


The  Southern  Woman:     Past  and  Present* 

By  Edwin  Mims 
Professor  of  English,  Vanderbilt  University 

MR.  DOOLEY  once  remarked  that  in  his  youth  he 
wrote  a  book  about  Woman;  but  when  in  maturer 
life  he  came  to  publish  it  he  added  at  the  end  what 
the  scientists  call  Errata,  in  which  he  requested  his 
readers,  wherever  in  its  pages  they  found  "is,"  to  substitute  "is 
not,"  and  wherever  they  found  "is  not,"  to  substitute  "may  be," 
"perhaps,"  or  "God  knows."  With  due  recognition  of  the  dangers 
of  writing  or  speaking  about  the  eternal  woman  question  as  sug- 
gested in  this  remark  of  our  American  humorist,  and  with  due 
apology  to  the  members  of  the  graduating  class,  who  are  doubt- 
less much  better  informed  than  the  speaker,  I  purpose  to  discuss 
with  you  the  Southern  Woman :  Past  and  Present.  I  shall  en- 
deavor to  steer  clear  of  the  many  delicate  and  troublesome 
questions  involved  in  the  feminist  movement,  and  rather  to  sug- 
gest in  concrete  form  and  with  the  aid  of  our  recent  Southern 
literature  some  of  the  most  pronounced  types  of  womanhood. 
Whatever  may  be  lacking  in  the  way  of  abstract  generalizations 
may  be  compensated  for,  I  trust,  in  the  concrete  types  presented 
for  your  consideration. 

If  there  is  one  thing  upon  which  Southern  people  have  prided 
themselves,  it  is  their  reverence  for  womanhood.  Long  after 
Burke  had  pathetically  lamented  the  passing  of  the  age  of  chiv- 
alry in  Europe,  we  maintained  the  outward  form  and  the  inward 
spirit  of  chivalry — in  our  ante-bellum  social  life  and  more  es- 
pecially in  our  chivalric  attitude  towards  the  gentler  sex.  In 
the  stories  and  novels  of  Mr.  Thomas  Nelson  Page  we  have  pre- 
served, for  our  generation  at  least,  the  women  of  the  old  regime. 
It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  author  idealizes  his  heroines,  but  that 
is  a  fault  scarcely  to  be  wondered  at  in  one  so  enamored  of  the 
Old  South.    One  is  apt  to  smile  at  his  "lily-fingered,  pink-faced, 


♦Delivered  as  the  Commencement  Address  at  Randolph-Macon  Woman's 
College,  June  1,  1915. 


4  Bulletin 

laughing  girl  with  teeth  like  pearls  and  eyes  like  stars,"  or  his 
creatures  of  "peach-bloom  and  snow,  languid,  delicate,  saucy." 
And  yet  who  can  resist  the  charm  of  Polly,  the  light-hearted, 
tender  creature,  or  of  "Miss  Charlotte"  coming  down  the  grand 
stairway  looking  like  "she  done  come  down  right  from  de  top  o' 
de  blue  sky  and  bring  a  piece  on  it  wid  her,"  or  Meh  Lady  in  her 
bridal  dress,  "white  as  snow  from  her  head  to  way  back  down 
on  de  flo'  behind  her,  an'  her  veil  done  fall  roun'  her  like  white 
mist,  an'  some  roses  in  her  hair,"  or  Margaret  Landon,  dressed 
in  a  curious  rich  old  flowered  silk  which  she  had  found  in  one  of 
her  grandmother's  trunks,  "looking  as  if  she  had  just  stepped  out 
of  an  old  picture?"  In  such  sketches  we  have  the  inexpressible 
Southern  girl,  "with  her  fine  grain,  silken  hair,  her  satin  skin, 
her  musical  speech." 

She  in  time  became  the  dignified  matron  of  the  plantation,  "the 
gentle,  classic,  serious  mother  among  her  tall  sons  and  radiant 
daughters."  She  was  mistress,  manager,  doctor,  nurse,  counselor, 
seamstress,  teacher,  housekeeper,  slave,  all  at  once — "the  key- 
stone of  the  domestic  economy  which  bound  all  the  rest  of  the 
structure  and  gave  it  its  strength  and  beauty."  Face  to  face  with 
the  hardships  and  privations  of  war,  she  was  patriotic,  resource- 
ful, courageous.  We  associate  such  women,  young  and  old,  with 
stately  columns  and  porticos,  polished  halls,  family  portraits, 
immemorial  trees,  and  a  social  life  notable  for  its  charm  and 
courtesy. 

A  later  writer  born  in  another  section  of  the  country,  the 
author  of  "Lady  Baltimore,"  has  portrayed  in  fascinating  lan- 
guage the  same  type  of  woman  with  a  different  background — that 
of  Charleston,  "the  most  lovely,  the  most  wistful  town  in  America ; 
whose  visible  sadness  and  distinction  seems  also  to  speak  audibly, 
speak  in  the  sound  of  the  quiet  waves  that  ripple  around  her 
Southern  front,  speak  in  the  church  bells  on  Sunday  morning, 
and  Ijreathe  not  only  in  the  soft  salt  air,  hul  in  the  perfume  of 
every  gentle,  old-fashioned  rose  that  blooms  behind  the  high 
garden  wall  of  falling,  mellow-tinted  plaster;  King's  Port,  the 
retrospective,  King's  Port,  the  1)elatcd,  who  from  her  pensive 
porticos  looks  over  her  two  rivers  to  the  marshes  and  the  trees 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  5 

beyond  the  live  oaks,  veiled  in  gray  moss,  brooding  with  mem- 
ories !"  Here  lived  a  handful  of  people  who  were  like  that  great 
society  of  the  world,  "the  high  society  of  distinguished  men  and 
women  who  exist  no  more."  The  charm  of  these  women  was 
like  the  charm  of  some  sweet  old  melody — "a  reflection  of  the  old 
serene  candlelight  we  all  once  talked  and  danced  in."  "If  they 
seemed  to  me,"  says  Mr.  Wister,  "as  narrow  as  those  streets,  they 
also  seem  to  me  as  lovely  as  those  serene  gardens ;  and  if  I  had 
smiled  at  their  prejudices,  I  had  loved  their  innocence,  their  deep 
innocence,  of  the  poisoned  age  which  had  succeeded  their  own." 
In  the  women  of  Mr.  Page  and  Mr.  Wister,  we  of  the  present 
generation  realize  to  some  extent  the  aristocratic  type  of  the 
ante-bellum  South  in  country  and  in  city.  In  striking  contrast 
with  these  women  were  those  of  what  we  should  call  to-day  the 
middle  class.  Far  more  than  we  have  sometimes  thought,  there 
was  a  democratic  element  in  the  ante-bellum  South.  Small  plan- 
tations and  villages  constituted  the  background  of  a  distinctly 
different  type  of  civilization  from  that  of  Virginia  or  South 
Carolina.  I  speak  of  the  women  who  were  the  mothers  and  grand- 
mothers of  many  of  us — plain,  pious,  energetic,  and  resourceful. 
They  were  the  Methodists  and  Baptists  and  Presbyterians  of 
somewhat  primitive  days.  They  took  part  in  what  Mrs.  Corra 
Harris  has  designated  in  her  "Circuit  Rider's  Wife"  "the  candle- 
lit drama  of  salvation."  Except  in  this  novel,  the  hero  of  which 
is  the  old-time  circuit  rider,  this  type  of  woman  has  not  found 
adequate  expression  in  written  words.  Her  face  comes  to  us 
not  in  splendid  portraits,  but  in  faded  deguerreotypes  or  crude 
photographs,  but  she  lives  in  our  hearts  and  memories.  Her 
interests  were  centered  in  the  home  and  in  the  church;  she  read 
but  one  book,  the  Bible,  or  perchance  "Mother,  Home  and 
Heaven";  she  had  but  little  education,  but  she  was  a  familiar 
figure  at  camp-meetings  or  in  the  small  churches,  which  were 
like  beacon  lights  in  pioneer  communities.  Lacking  the  charm 
of  the  social  life  which  we  have  just  suggested,  she  had  in  her 
home  the  prophet's  chamber  in  which  the  messenger  of  God  was 
always  welcome.  Such  a  woman  Tennyson  had  in  mind  when 
he  wrote  of  the  sister  of  Lazarus : 


Bulletin 


"Her  eyes  are  homes  of  silent  prayer. 

Thrice  blest  whose  lives  are  faithful  prayers, 
Whose  loves  in  higher  love  endure. 


Oh,  sacred  be  the  flesh  and  blood 
To  which  she  links  a  truth  divine !" 

And  we  may  repeat  the  poet's  warning,  too : 

"See  thou,  that  countest  reason  ripe 

In  holding  by  the  law  within, 

Thou  fail  not  in  a  world  of  sin. 
And  ev'n  for  want  of  such  a  type." 

Whatever  may  come  to  us  in  this  new  age  in  which  we  live,  we 
should  not  lose  out  of  our  minds  and  hearts  the  memories  and 
traditions  that  are  associated  with  these  two  types  of  Southern 
womanhood.  Whatever  new  ideals  may  be  suggested  to  us,  we 
shall  do  well  to  estimate  at  their  proper  value  the  social  charm 
and  the  pious  devotion  which  come  to  us  from  a  former  genera- 
tion. And  yet  we  should  not  make  the  mistake  of  idealizing  a 
former  state  of  society  at  the  expense  of  our  own.  Neither  the 
charm  of  the  romancer,  nor  the  haze  through  which  we  see  the 
past,  should  cause  us  to  idealize  the  past.  The  ante-bellum  South 
was  not  the  golden  age.  Side  by  side  with  these  two  types  we 
must  place  two  who  were,  in  a  sense,  the  victims  of  the  old  order. 
Mr.  Walter  H.  Page,  our  present  Ambassador  to  England,  in  a 
memorable  address  has  pointed  out  what  he  calls  "The  Forgotten 
Woman"  of  the  South :  ''Both  the  aristocratic  and  the  ecclesi- 
astical systems  made  provision  for  the  women  of  special  classes — 
the  fortunately  born  and  the  religious  well-to-do.  But  all  the  other 
women  were  forgotten.  Let  any  man  whose  mind  is  not  hard- 
ened by  some  worn-out  theory  of  politics  or  of  ecclesiasticism  go 
to  the  country  in  almost  any  part  of  the  State  (North  Carolina)  — 
to  make  a  study  of  the  life  of  the  women.  He  will  sec  them 
thin  anrl  wrinkled  in  youth  from  ill-prej)ared  food,  clad  without 
warmth  or  grace,  living  in  untidy  houses,  working  from  daylight 
till  bcfllimc  at  the  dull  round  of  weary  duties,  the  slaves  of  men  of 
equal  slovenliness,  the  mothers  of  joyless  children — all  uneducated 
if  not  illiterate.  Yet  even  this  condition  were  endurable  if  there 
were  any  hope,  but  this  type  of  woman  is  encrusted  in  a  shell  of 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  7 

dull  content  with  her  lot ;  she  knows  no  better  and  can  never  learn 
better,  nor  point  her  children  to  a  higher  life.  Some  men  who 
are  born  under  these  conditions  escape  from  them;  a  man  may 
go  away,  go  where  life  offers  opportunities,  but  the  women  are 
forever  helpless." 

A  Virginia  novelist,  Miss  Ellen  Glasgow,  in  her  "A  Voice  of 
the  People,"  portrays  such  a  type  in  the  mother  of  Aaron  Burr, 
"worn  by  hardness,  crippled  by  poverty,  embittered  by  sorrow." 
In  a  moment  of  bitterness  at  the  sordid  tragedy  of  her  life  she 
says,  "Its  goin'  on  ten  years  since  I  have  stopped  to  draw  breath, 
and  I  am  clean  wore  out.  'Taint  no  better  than  a  dog's  life, 
nohow — a  woman  and  a  dog  air  about  the  only  creatures  as  would 
put  up  with  it,  and  they're  the  biggest  pair  of  fools  the  Lord 
ever  made.  I  have  had  a  hard  life  and  it  warn't  fair."  Such  a 
figure  is  the  sad  commentary  upon  a  vanished  social  order  in  the 
light  of  our  present  democratic  ideals,  and  by  its  contrast  is  the 
prophecy  of  a  new  day  in  which  all  classes  are  being  brought 
within  the  range  of  education  and  culture.  The  same  author  has 
portrayed  in  "The  Deliverance"  the  daughter  of  an  overseer  who 
rises  from  the  soil  with  all  its  coarseness  to  unexpected  heights 
of  culture  and  refinement — fitted  in  every  way  to  become  the  wife 
of  a  descendant  of  the  old  cavaliers.  In  his  bitterness  this  man 
had  denied  the  possibility  of  such  development  in  the  common 
people,  but  in  his  enlarged  manhood  he  realizes  the  possiblities  of 
human  nature  under  any  and  all  circumstances.  He  is  finally 
delivered  from  the  feeling  of  caste. 

There  is  another  type  scarcely  less  poignant  in  its  tragedy  than 
this  of  the  forgotten  woman.  She  was  found  even  in  the  most 
aristocratic  circles — one  who  never  realized  herself  by  reason  of 
the  limitations  of  the  social  life  by  which  she  was  surrounded. 
Again  we  have  recourse  to  Miss  Glasgow,  who,  though  lacking 
perhaps  the  charm  of  some  of  the  earlier  story  writers  of  the 
South,  has  brought  to  fiction  a  mind  singularly  gifted  in  portraying 
and  interpreting  social  tendencies.  In  "The  Miller  of  the  Old 
Church"  she  presents  us  with  the  character  of  an  old  maid  who 
in  her  youth  had  had  a  yearning  for  art  and  a  desire  to  study 
abroad,  but  whose  ambitions  had  been  thwarted  by  the  ideals  of 


8  Bulletin 

womanhood  that  prevailed  in  her  family.  "Generations  of  ances- 
try had  bred  in  her  the  belief  that  woman  existed  only  to  win  love 
or  bestow  it.  Since  in  the  eyes  of  her  generation  any  self-expres- 
sion from  a  woman,  which  was  not  associated  with  sex,  was  an 
affront  to  convention,  that  single  gift  of  hers  was  doomed  to 
wither  away  in  the  hot-house  air  that  surrounded  her.  She  had 
pulled  in  vain  at  the  obstinate  tendrils  that  held  her  to  the  spot 
in  which  she  had  grown.  Why  on  earth  should  a  girl  want  to  go 
streaking  across  the  water  to  study  art,  when  she  had  a  home  she 
could  stay  in  and  men  folks  who  could  look  after  her." 

Here  again,  then,  we  have  an  indictment  of  the  old  order  from 
another  standpoint.  Essentially,  however,  it  is  but  the  presenta- 
tion of  the  ideals  of  democracy  from  another  point  of  view.  For 
democracy  is  not  merely  a  form  of  government,  it  is  a  state  of 
society  in  which  all  roads  are  open  to  talent,  in  which  all  types 
of  people  may  find  a  realization  of  their  powers.  We  have  often 
spoken  of  the  democracy  of  the  New  South  from  the  standpoint 
of  men  and  of  races,  but  we  have  not  yet  seen  with  some  intelli- 
gent women  that  it  is  also  a  most  vital  question  in  the  life  of  our 
women.  In  making  this  statement  I  do  not  refer  to  the  right  of 
suffrage — for  that  is  far  too  delicate  a  question  for  me  to  enter 
upon  on  this  occasion  and  in  this  presence.  But  the  right  of 
women  to  realize  themselves,  to  find  opportunities  for  self-ex- 
pression outside  of  the  bounds  of  our  conventional  social  ideals 
is  a  fundamental  one. 

How  some  women  have  struggled  against  these  ideals,  crys- 
tallized in  definite  formulae  and  conventions,  is  thoughtfully, 
though  not  artistically,  presented  in  Miss  Mary  Johnston's 
**Hagar,"  where  we  have  a  brilliant  and  somewhat  eccentric 
young  woman  struggling  against  the  society  in  which  she  moves. 
She  is  told  by  everyone  that  woman's  place  is  the  home ;  **and  we 
can  surely  trust  everything  to  the  chivalry  of  our  Southern  men." 
Her  irritable  and  obstinate  grandfather — a  somewhat  typical 
Southern  colonel — exclaims  in  passionate  indignation  at  the  new 
shibboleths  of  women  and  at  modern  society  in  general :  "People 
defying  their  betters,  women  deserting  their  natural  sphere, 
atheists  denying  hell  and  saying  that  the  world  wasn't  made  in 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  9 

six  days,  young  girls  talking  about  independence  and  their  own 
lives!  Their  own  lives!  Ha!"  When  Hagar  reads  Darwin  and 
Shelley  and  Ibsen,  her  grandmother  says,  "I  don't  pretend  to  be 
literary  or  to  understand  literary  talk.  What  Moses  and  St. 
Paul  said  and  the  way  we  have  done  always  in  Old  Virginia  is 
good  enough  for  me.  You  are  perverse  and  rebellious.  It  is 
against  the  Bible."  Unable  to  subdue  the  mind  of  the  young 
rebel,  her  guardians  turn  her  over  to  an  old-fashioned  boarding 
school  for  girls.  To  its  presiding  genius  is  committed  the  guar- 
dianship of  the  young  female  mind,  *'of  the  safe  and  elegant  paths 
into  which  she  guided  it,"  and  she  has  the  gift  for  "preserving  dew 
and  bloom  and  ignorance  of  evil  in  her  interesting  charges." 
This  teacher  is  horrified  that  one  girl  is  to  be  a  nurse,  another  to 
be  a  journalist,  and  exclaims :  "One  of  those  girls  has  a  brother 
and  the  other  a  father  quite  able  to  support  them.  Women 
working  for  their  living !"  To  a  passionate  lover  who  insists  that 
she  must  just  be  her  beautiful  self  and  keep  on  loving  him,  Hagar 
exclaims,  "Well,  I  am  real  too.  I  am  as  real  as  you  are."  At  the 
end  of  the  story  when  she  has  at  last  found  opportunity  for  com- 
plete self-realization,  she  sums  up  her  struggle  with  all  the  forces 
about  her  in  these  words :  "I  had  to  think  away  from  concepts 
with  which  the  atmosphere  was  saturated.  I  had  to  think  away 
from  creeds  and  dogmas  and  affirmations  made  for  me  by  my 
ancestors — the  idea  of  a  sacrosanct  Past  and  the  virtue  of  Im- 
mobility. I  had  to  strike  away  from  Sanctions  and  Authority 
and  Taboos  and  Divine  Rights." 

In  a  much  more  artistic  form  and  with  a  point  of  view  that  is 
more  comprehensive  and  more  discriminating,  Mr.  Henry  Sydnor 
Harrison  has  presented  us  with  abundant  material  for  studying 
the  Southern  woman  of  the  present  day.  When  we  read  Mr. 
Page's  stories  we  feel  at  the  end  that  the  curtain  falls  and  that 
there  is  no  future  worth  while.  When  we  read  "Queed"  and 
"V.  V.'s  Eyes,"  we  feel  that  we  are  watching  our  contemporary 
life  in  a  period  of  transition  to  something  better,  and  that  in 
this  changing  order  women  are  playing  a  most  vital  part.  They 
respond  to  the  call  of  a  new  day.  Alarmed  with  many  superfi- 
cial manifestations   of  the  new   spirit,   such  as  women's  clubs 


10  Bulletin 

and  charity  organizations,  which  to  many  are  but  new  opportunities 
of  social  triumphs,  young  women,  poor  and  rich  aHke,  grow  sick 
of  years  lived  without  serious  purpose  waiting  for  husband  and 
children  which  sometimes  never  come;  "sick  of  their  dependence, 
of  their  idleness,  of  their  careful  segregation  from  the  currents 
of  life  about  them."  "They  weary,  in  short,  of  their  position  of 
inferior  human  worth,  under  that  glittering  cover  of  fiction  which 
looks  so  wholly  noble  till  you  stop  to  think."  In  a  word,  there 
comes  ''the  revolt  of  women  against  chivalry,  in  chivalry's  old 
home  and  seat.''  In  spite  of  all  solemn  plausibilities  and  humor- 
ous jibes,  women  are  coming  to  play  a  part  in  civic  improvements, 
social  progress,  united  charities,  the  scientific  treatment  of  disease, 
and  even  to  take  their  part  in  political  life.  Mrs.  Page,  a  charm- 
ing type  of  the  old  South,  feels  that  her  life  might  have  been  dif- 
ferent if  she  had  lived  in  a  different  social  order  from  that  of  her 
youth.  "I  wasn't  trained  to  express  myself  that  way ;  that  was  all 
ironed  down  flat  in  me.  I  never  had  any  education,  except  what 
was  superficial-showy.    I  was  never  taught  to  think." 

Mr.  Harrison's  finest  character  in  "Queed"  is  "Sharlee"  Wey- 
land,  the  assistant  secretary  of  the  state  department  of  charity — 
a  Southern  girl,  the  descendant  of  one  of  the  best  families  of 
Virginia,  who  has  to  act  as  stenographer,  clerk,  and  office  boy 
because  of  the  reduced  circumstances  of  her  family.  She  has 
all  the  charm  of  one  of  Thomas  Nelson  Page's  heroines — the  sort 
that  "old  ladies  stop  and  watch."  There  was  nothing  in  the 
least  businesslike,  officious,  or  stenographic  in  her  manner.  If 
her  head  bulged  with  facts  about  the  treatment  of  deficient 
classes,  no  hint  of  that  appeared  in  her  talk  at  parties  where  she 
was  the  queen  of  dancers  and  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes.  But  she 
has  something  that  the  proverbial  girl  does  not  have — she  has 
ideas,  a  certain  Inisinesslike  sagacity,  and  a  high  social  purpose. 
To  her  aunt  who,  though  keeping  a  boarding  house,  will  not  dun 
her  boarders,  she  says :  "I  am  not  well  bred.  I  am  bold,  blunt, 
brazen,  I  am  forward.  I  am  resolute  and  grim.  In  short  I  belong 
to  the  younger  generation  which  you  despise  so."  To  her  mother, 
wbo  resents  her  association  with  those  who  have  not  the  distinc- 
tion of  birth  and  breeding,  she  says  "I  am  a  Democrat."     And 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  ii 

her  mother  repHes,  "That's  what  no  lady  ought  to  be."  In  her 
official  position  and  as  a  woman  of  conviction,  she  gives  herself 
to  the  work  of  establishing  a  reformatory  for  girls,  and  has 
visions  of  many  other  public  institutions  which  her  native  state 
has  need  of.  In  the  end  she  marries  Queed,  but  her  life  of 
quickened  social  interest  has  not  been  in  vain. 

To  her  eccentric  lover  she  speaks  words  that  sum  up  our 
present  era  in  the  South :  "Heigho !  we  are  living  in  an  interest- 
ing time,  you  and  I.  It  isn't  every  generation  that  can  watch 
its  old  town  change  into  a  metropolis  right  under  its  eyes.  You 
say  that  you  are  an  evolutionary  sociologist.  Yet  a  wonderful 
demonstration  in  social  evolution  is  going  on  all  round  you,  and 
you  don't  even  know  it.  On  the  one  side  there  are  Colonel  Cowes 
and  my  grandmother.  On  the  other  there  are  our  splendid  young 
men,  men  who,  with  conditions  of  leisure  and  cultured  idleness 
in  their  blood,  have  pitched  in  with  their  hands  and  heads  to  make 
this  state  hum.  On  the  one  side  there  is  the  old  slave-holding 
aristocracy;  on  the  other  the  finest  democracy  in  the  world.  A 
real  sociologist  would  be  absorbed  in  watching  this  marvelous 
process;  social  evolution  actually  surprised  in  our  workshop.  A 
tremendous  social  drama  is  being  acted  out  under  your  very  win- 
dozv  and  you  yawn  and  pull  dozsm  the  blinds" 

I  could  wish  that  these  words  might  sink  deep  into  your  minds, 
for  they  describe  for  you  the  world  in  which  you  live.  To  under- 
stand the  Present  South  is  one  of  the  supreme  duties  that  devolve 
upon  young  women  that  graduate  from  such  institutions  as  this. 
The  South  of  to-day  is  a  section  in  which  industrialism,  science. 
Democracy,  and  nationalism  are  dominant  forces.  You  may 
lament  the  passing  of  the  old  order,  but  you  cannot  escape  from 
the  present  generation  if  you  would.  The  easy  thing  is  to  dream 
of  a  golden  age  that  never  was,  or  of  a  golden  age  that  lies  ahead 
in  the  mystic  years  of  the  future.  The  difficult  thing  is  to  under- 
stand your  own  age,  to  master  its  language.  Cherishing  all  that 
is  best  in  the  past,  you  will  help  the  present  generation  to  lift  our 
civilization  a  bit  higher.  I  know  of  nothing  more  futile  than  for 
people  to  rail  against  their  own  age.  Let  the  old  do  so,  but  we 
of  the  present  age,  we  who  have  the  blood  of  youth  coursing 


12  Bulletin 

through  our  veins,  must  meet  the  challenge  of  a  difficult  situation. 
We  shall  be  neither  hopeless  conservatives  nor  extreme  radicals, 
but  progressive  conservatives.  We  shall  be  neither  swift,  nor 
slow,  to  change.  There  is  not  a  single  force  in  our  present  life 
that  may  not  be  fraught  with  great  danger,  not  a  change  is  taking 
place  that  may  not  be  for  the  worse — that  is  one  side  of  the  truth. 
It  is  equally  true  that  there  is  not  a  single  force  that  may  not  be 
used  to  advantage  by  wise  men  and  women  of  the  present  genera- 
tion. To  see  to  it  that  we  as  individuals  and  that  our  communi- 
ties and  commonwealths  may  share  all  the  results  of  an  advanc- 
ing civilization  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  destroy  the  unity  of  our 
history  and  not  to  lose  the  strength  and  the  charm  of  the  past, 
is  our  supreme  duty. 

And  now  may  I  interpret  some  of  these  general  ideas  in  the 
light  of  your  own  life?  You  of  the  graduating  class  especially 
are  thinking  to-day  of  what  you  are  to  do  in  future  years.  No 
general  talk  about  the  age  or  the  section  in  which  you  live  should 
obscure  your  own  individual  life — in  the  secret  recesses  of  your 
own  soul  you  must  work  out  your  destiny. 

It  is  reasonable  to  take  for  granted  that  the  great  majority  of 
you  will  marry.  You  have  already  thought  in  terms  of  home 
life  and  are  reasonably  sure  that  you  will  some  day  realize  your 
dreams.  For  the  next  two  or  three  years  you  will  doubtless  enter 
what  we  call,  for  lack  of  a  better  term,  society.  You  will  be  the 
debutantes  of  the  coming  season  in  your  various  communities. 
Some  of  you,  I  fear,  will  become  the  victims  of  society,  the 
creatures  of  fashion.  Angela's  Business — the  subject  of  Mr. 
Harrison's  most  recent  novel — may  become  your  business — to  be 
seen  of  men  and  to  be  loved  of  men.  Corra  Harris's  "In  Search 
of  a  Husband" — so  bitterly  resented  by  some  men  and  women — 
may  after  all  be  the  story  of  your  life,  and  even  the  insolent 
philosophy  of  Bernard  Shaw's  ''Man  and  Super-Man"  may  be  the 
unconscious  philosophy  of  your  life.  You  will  wait  as  the  spider 
waits  for  the  fly — motionless ;  but  you  will  get  him !  God  forbid 
that  you  should  ever  be  a  social  creature  of  the  type  described  by 
John  (jalsworthy :  "Taught  to  believe  that  life  consists  in  caring 
for  your  clean,  well-nourished  body — taught  to  feel  that  your  only 
business   is   to  know  the   next   thing  that  you   want  and  get  it 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  13 

given  you.  .  .  your  heart  a  stagnant  pool  that  never  sees  the  sun. 
You  will  have  everything — theater,  opera,  books,  music,  travel, 
and  religion — and  yet  be  blind  in  heart  and  soul  and  voice  and 
walk.  .  .  The  Forces  are  proud  of  you,  their  waxen,  scentless 
flower.  A  soul  that  was  born  in  you  a  bird;  wings  gone,  eyes 
gone.  The  most  tragic  figure  in  the  world — the  Figure  without 
Eyes.  You  are  as  dead  as  the  snow  around  the  crater  of  a  burnt- 
out  volcano." 

When  after  a  social  career  you  choose  your  husband — or  have 
him  chosen  for  you — you  may  continue  the  career  of  your  social 
conquests  and  play  at  social  precedence  with  your  neighbors. 
Wealth  may  bring  to  you  a  house  rather  than  a  home.  In  your 
irresponsibility  and  conventionality,  you  may  reproduce  without 
knowing  it  the  tragedy  of  Nora  in  Ibsen's  "A  Doll's  House."  It 
makes  one  shudder  to  think  of  the  gayety,  the  frivolity,  the  stu- 
pidity of  much  of  the  social  life  of  to-day.  Mrs.  Wharton's  "The 
House  of  Mirth,"  with  its  delicate  irony,  is  a  story  reproduced 
in  many  social  circles.  As  one  who  does  not  agree  with  the  ex- 
treme position  taken  by  many  godly  people  with  regard  to  worldly 
amusements,  I  cannot  but  protest  in  the  name  of  righteousness 
and  even  of  good  sense  at  the  abuses  to  which  many  people  carry 
them.  Nothing  too  hard  can  be  said  about  people  who,  especially 
at  this  time  of  strain  and  stress  throughout  the  world,  are  living 
their  lives  in  utter  disregard  of  laws  of  health,  of  science,  and 
even  of  decency.  It  is  no  wonder  that  many  who  live  in  our 
Southern  cities,  face  to  face  with  the  increasing  wealth  and  lux- 
ury of  this  day,  have  turned  longingly  back  to  the  social  ideals 
of  a  former  generation. 

And  yet  I  cannot  believe  that  many  of  the  graduates  of  this 
noble  institution  will  follow  the  career  that  I  have  just  outlined. 
As  young  women  you  will  continue  to  grow  in  the  life  of  culture 
and  of  goodness.  If  you  have  loved  books  here,  you  will  continue 
to  love  them,  and  the  passing  years  will  see  you  developing  an  ever 
surer  taste  for  what  is  excellent  in  literature  and  art.  Your 
ideals  will  have  spreading  power.  You  will  be  keepers  of  the 
light.  When  you  marry,  you  will  have  homes  instead  of  houses. 
You  will  preserve  the  best  traditions  of  the  home-life  of  the 


14  Bulletin 

Southern  people,  while  at  the  same  time  you  will  take  full  ad- 
vantage of  the  teachings  of  modern  science  and  of  the  comforts  of 
modern  life.  You  will  keep  the  sky-light  open  that  God  may 
enter. 

A  few  days  ago  I  rode  with  some  friends  out  Harding  Road 
from  Nashville.  It  is  the  old  road  to  "Belle  Meade,"  which  was 
one  of  the  most  magnificent  of  ante-bellum  estates — one  of  those 
places  which  still  suggest  to  us  the  social  life  of  which  I  spoke  at 
the  beginning  of  this  address.  All  along  the  road  now  are  splendid 
houses  which  the  well-to-do  people  of  Nashville  have  built,  with 
the  background  of  the  hills  and  valleys  of  middle  Tennessee.  I 
knew  enough  about  the  people  to  distinguish  between  houses  and 
real  homes.  Some  of  the  dwellings  were  the  result  of  an  architect's 
taste,  and  the  lawns  were  planned  by  landscape  architects,  and 
neither  represented  the  taste  of  the  men  and  women  who  owned 
them;  some  of  their  libraries  had  books  in  them  which  are  only 
a  species  of  furniture — editions  de  luxe  which  are  never  read; 
some  of  them  had  pianos  from  which  came  no  melody.  I  knew 
of  skeletons  in  their  closets  and  of  shadows  on  the  threshold. 
They  were  ''Houses  of  Mirth." 

In  contrast  with  these  were  others  that  were  real  homes — and 
one  especially —  a.  house  of  an  Elizabethan  type,  first  dreamed  and 
then  planned  by  those  who  had  traveled  in  England.  Around 
it  were  thirty  acres  of  monumental  oaks,  gardens — vegetable  and 
rose — and  pasture  lands  for  sheep.  I  recalled  that  it  is  the  custom 
of  the  inmates  to  entertain  upon  the  lawn  parties  of  friends  from 
the  city;  one  could  think  of  England  with  its  afternoon  tea- 
parties.  Here  are  entertained  literary  clubs  of  the  city,  all  of 
whom  feel  it  a  rare  privilege  to  breathe  for  a  while  the  atmos- 
phere of  such  a  place.  The  library,  the  slow  accretion  of  years, 
with  books  well-marked  and  well-used,  is  the  best  indication  of 
real  literary  taste.  All  these — house,  and  lawn,  and  gardens — are 
but  an  outward  expression  of  the  soul  of  the  man  and  woman 
who  have  made  this  haunt  of  ancient  peace.  The  father,  now 
one  of  the  most  prominent  lawyers  of  the  city,  was  the  honor 
man  of  his  class  at  the  University,  and  has  kept  in  later  years  the 
intellectual  habits  of  his  youth.     The  mother,  a  social  leader  in 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  15 

her  younger  days,  loved  a  poor  man  in  whom  she  believed.  After 
a  period  of  struggle  and  mutual  co-operation,  they  have  realized 
in  this  home  the  dreams  of  years.  They  have  four  children — one 
of  them  now  at  the  University  and  one  of  the  leaders  of  his  class, 
the  others  in  preparatory  schools  known  for  their  modesty  and 
scholarship.  Father  and  mother  move  in  the  best  circles  of  social 
life  and  are  like  a  benediction  to  all  who  know  them — the  masters 
and  not  the  slaves  of  social  customs. 

If  then  you  do  what  most  women  ought  to  do,  you  will  find  in 
such  a  life  as  is  suggested  here  the  fullest  opportunity  for  the 
exercise  of  all  the  powers  that  you  can  command.  The  art  of 
home-making  is  the  most  difficult  of  all  arts  to  master.  Beside 
this  delicate  and  complex  art,  the  ordinary  profession  of  a  man 
appears  simple.  Accepted  as  a  conventional  form  of  life,  mar- 
riage is  the  most  futuile  of  all  careers;  but  taken  as  a  sacred 
challenge  to  apply  all  that  is  best  in  science,  in  literature,  in  art, 
and  in  religion,  to  the  making  of  a  real  home  which  shall  be  a 
link  between  the  generations  that  have  been  and  are  to  be,  it  is  the 
noblest  of  all  careers. 

There  are  some  of  you,  however,  who,  in  all  human  probability, 
will  not  marry,  and  it  is  to  you  that  I  wish  to  speak  briefly  in  my 
concluding  remarks.  I  know  of  nothing  more  tragic  than  that 
of  a  young  woman  or  a  middle-aged  woman  who,  disappointed  in 
her  expectation  of  marriage,  has  no  definite  purpose  for  her  life. 
There  is  no  reason  why  anybody  in  this  day  and  time  should  fail 
to  find  an  opportunity  for  creative  work  of  the  highest  kind.  If 
you  have  caught  clearly  the  purport  of  some  of  the  novels  sug- 
gested by  me,  you  realize  to  some  extent  that  the  modern  world 
brings  to  each  of  you  a  chance  for  self-realization.  Don't  be 
afraid,  or  ashamed  to  be,  a  "Permanent  Spinster."  Thank  God 
that  you  do  not  have  to  marry  unless  Love  demands  it,  and  that 
you  may  find  careers  of  usefulness  all  about  you ! 

I  can  but  suggest  some  of  the  lines  of  work  that  loom  large  on 
our  horizon  to-day.  I  trust  that  some  of  you  will  continue  your 
studies  in  the  colleges  and  universities  of  this  country  or  of 
Europe.  There  are  members  of  your  own  faculty  who  speak  to 
you  in  no  uncertain  terms  of  what  a  specialist  in  some  line  of 


i6  Bulletin 

scholarship,  thoroughly  consecrated  to  her  work,  may  be  in  the 
life  of  young  people.  It  is  worth  all  the  effort  and  struggle  that 
it  will  cost  you  to  become  master  of  some  special  branch  of  human 
learning  and  then  the  interpreter  of  the  same  to  other  people.  In 
the  schools  of  the  South  there  is  work  for  the  most  ambitious  of 
you — rural  and  urban  schools  which  are  revolutionalizing  their 
communities.  I  could  tell  you  by  the  hour  of  young  women  teach- 
ers who  have  displayed  initiative  and  aggressiveness  in  education 
that  should  cause  them  to  be  enrolled  in  the  Golden  Book  of 
Legends.  Far  too  many  women  are  teaching  school  simply  be- 
cause of  economic  demand ;  there  ought  to  be  an  increasing  num- 
ber who  will  go  out  from  this  institution  to  pursue  teaching  as 
a  sacred  profession. 

Time  does  not  allow  me  to  suggest  other  lines  of  endeavor. 
Helen  Gould  in  business,  Jane  Addams  in  social  service.  Miss 
Glasgow  and  Miss  Johnston  in  literature.  Dean  Gildersleeve  and 
President  Thomas  in  higher  education,  and  hundreds  of  others 
in  all  fields  of  human  endeavor  should  be  perpetual  reminders  of 
the  creative  opportunities  that  are  open  to  the  young  women  of 
the  present  generation.  They  have  careers  fully  as  useful  as,  and 
sometimes  more  significant  than,  those  of  women  who  have  found 
themselves  in  the  home  and  in  society.  They  have  made  homes 
for  the  delinquent  and  the  unfortunate ;  they  have  lighted  fires  on 
the  altars  of  human  souls ;  they  have  made  the  light  to  shine  in 
the  dark  corners.  Their  children  have  been  incarnate  ideas  in 
the  lives  of  others.  They  have  done  for  the  State  and  for  com- 
munities what  others  have  done  in  the  home.  They  do  not  lose 
their  womanhood,  nor  their  sense  of  motherhood.  Theirs  is  the 
joy  that  belongs  to  the  redeemers  of  the  world;  theirs  is  the 
reward  of  those  who  are  bringing  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  If  you 
read  and  study  and  think,  you  will  find  more  and  more  doors 
thrown  open  to  those  who  have  the  vision  and  faculty  divine. 

My  last  word  is  simply  this.  Whatever  you  may  do  in  life,  you 
will  miss  tlie  full  significance  of  this  day  if  you  do  not  realize 
that  you  have  just  l)egun  to  live.  One  of  the  popular  fallacies 
that  we  have  to  combat  both  with  regard  to  religion  and  to  edu- 
cation is  that  we  ever  attain.    We  are  always  in  the  process  of 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  17 

becoming  educated ;  we  ought  always  to  be  coming  into  a  larger 
knowledge  of  ourselves  and  the  world  in  which  we  live.  The  dif- 
ference between  you  this  morning  is  not  what  you  are  now,  but 
what  you  will  be  ten  and  twenty  and  thirty  years  from  now.  You 
have  been  sailing  the  sea  of  life  and  have  seen  some  of  the  islands 
and  continents,  but  fairer  islands  and  greater  continents  are  on  the 
uncharted  deep  for  those  of  venturous  soul.  You  have  fought 
battles  already,  but  whether  you  have  won  or  lost,  greater  bat- 
tles are  yet  to  be  fought  on  all  the  fields  of  human  endeavor. 
You  have  climbed  a  part  of  the  way  up  the  mountain  of  life  and 
have  seen  some  fair  prospects,  but  the  real  visions  are  at  the 
top — the  panorama  of  spreading  plains,  and  neighboring  peaks, 
and  o'er  arching  skies — "the  shining  table  lands  to  which  our  God 
himself  is  sun  and  moon." 


1 8  Bulletin 

Faculty  Notes 

Dr.  G.  G.  Laubscher,  Professor  of  Romance  Languages,  has 
been  granted  a  sabbatic  leave  of  absence  for  the  year  19 15-16. 
Dr.  Laubscher  expects  to  spend  the  year  in  research  and  study  in 
this  country  and  abroad.  As  his  substitute  the  Board  has  secured 
the  services  of  Mr.  Clarence  E.  Leavenworth,  of  Cleveland,  Ohio. 
Mr.  Leavenworth  received  his  A.  B.  degree  from  Hamilton  Col- 
lege in  1909,  and  spent  the  next  four  years  in  teaching  in  the 
high  schools  of  Cleveland.  In  191 1  he  went  abroad,  and  spent 
the  year  in  study  in  Germany  and  Paris.  During  the  past  year  he 
has  been  doing  graduate  work  at  Yale  University,  from  which 
institution  he  holds  his  Master's  degree.  Professor  Leavenworth 
is  held  in  the  highest  esteem,  both  as  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar, 
by  all  who  are  acquainted  with  his  work.  He  will  receive  a 
cordial  welcome  from  the  faculty  and  students  of  the  Woman's 
College. 

Miss  Nellie  V.  Powell,  A.  M.,  Ph.  M.,  Adjunct-Professor  of 
English,  has  also  been  granted  leave  of  absence  for  the  scholastic 
year,  and  her  place  will  be  supplied  by  Miss  Roberta  D.  Cornelius. 
Miss  Cornelius  is  an  A.  B.  graduate  of  the  College  of  the  class  of 
1909,  and  was  an  Instructor  in  English  here  from  191 1  to  1913. 
The  College  community  will  extend  a  cordial  welcome  to  her  on 
her  return  to  Alma  Mater. 

Miss  Alice  H.  Belding,  A.  B.,  Director  of  Physical  Education, 
will  spend  the  scholastic  year  on  leave  of  absence  in  special  study 
in  her  department  in  Boston.  The  gymnasium  work  and  the 
athletic  interests  of  the  College  will  be  cared  for  during  her 
absence  by  Miss  Nelson  and  Miss  Nelson's  sister.  Miss  Bertha, 
who  has  just  been  graduated  from  the  Sargent  School  for  Physi- 
cal Education,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

In  place  of  Miss  M.  G.  Elkins,  Ph.  D.,  resigned,  Miss  Hazel 
Elizabeth  Field  has  been  appointed  Instructor  in  Biology.  Miss 
Field  is  taking  her  Master's  degree  at  the  University  of  Chicago 
this  summer.  Her  undergraduate  work  was  done  in  Western 
College  for  Women.  She  has  also  studied  three  summers  at  the 
liiological  Laboratory  at  Woods  Hole.  Besides  her  work  as 
Assistant    in    the    iiiological    Laboratory    of    the    University    of 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  19 

Chicago,  she  has  had  two  years  of  experience  in  teaching  Science 
in  Bellhaven  College,  Mississippi. 

Miss  Mabel  Kate  Whiteside,  A.  B.,  Adjunct-Professor  of 
Greek  and  Latin,  who  has  spent  the  year  in  the  University  of 
Chicago  on  leave  of  absence,  received  her  Master's  degree  at  the 
last  Convocation,  and  will  return  to  her  work  in  the  College  in 
September. 

Miss  Gillie  A.  Larew,  A.  M.,  Adjunct-Professor  of  Mathe- 
matics, who  has  also  been  spending  the  past  year  in  graduate 
study  in  the  University  of  Chicago,  has  received  an  appointment 
as  Instructor  in  the  Department  of  Mathematics  in  that  intsitu- 
tion,  and  her  leave  of  absence  has  been  extended  for  another  year. 

Dr.  Herbert  C.  Lipscomb,  Professor  of  Latin,  has  charge  of 
the  Department  of  Latin  in  the  Summer  Session  of  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University.  Professor  Lipscomb  is  an  alumnus  of  the 
University,  and  his  appointment  is  a  source  of  gratification  to  all 
friends  of  the  Woman's  College. 

Miss  Mary  Lura  Sherrill,  A.  M.,  Instructor  in  Chemistry,  is 
teaching  Chemistry  in  the  Greensboro  Summer  Normal. 

Miss  Jean  Paxton,  A.  B.,  '09,  who  for  the  past  three  years  has 
been  the  very  efficient  general  secretary  of  the  Young  Women's 
Christian  Association,  has  received  announcement  of  her  accept- 
ance as  a  missionary  in  China,  and  has  been  assigned  to  the 
Y.  W.  C.  A.  work  in  Canton,  China.  Miss  Helen  Becker,  A.  B,. 
instructor  in  Latin,  has  been  selected  as  her  successor.  Miss 
Becker  is  admirably  equipped  for  this  important  work  and  will 
receive  the  hearty  co-operation  of  the  Faculty,  students  and  Col- 
lege community. 

In  place  of  Miss  Becker,  Miss  Olivia  N.  Dorman,  A.  B.,  has 
been  appointed  Instructor  in  Latin,  a  position  she  held  in  19 13- 14. 

Notes  of  Progress 

At  the  recent  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Randolph- 
Macon  College,  provision  was  made  for  overhauling  and  renovat- 
ing the  bathrooms  in  W.  W.  Smith  Hall.  The  floors  will  be 
concreted  and  the  latest  and  most  improved  fixtures  will  be 
installed. 


20  *  Bulletin 

At  the  same  meeting  of  the  Board,  the  Executive  Committee 
of  the  Woman's  College  was  given  authority  to  install  an  electric 
light  and  power  plant  in  connection  with  the  present  central  heat- 
ing plant.  This  will  enable  the  College  to  generate  its  own  elec- 
tricity and  supply  the  buildings  and  laboratories  with  current 
sufficient  for  all  purposes.  These  improvements  will  be  ready  for 
service  at  the  opening  of  the  session  in  September. 

The  work  of  cataloging  and  classifying  the  books  of  the  Library 
is  progressing  under  the  direction  of  Miss  Forbes,  Librarian,  and 
Mrs.  Jennings,  former  head  cataloguer  of  Cornell  University. 
During  the  past  year  about  twelve  hundred  new  volumes  were 
added  to  the  Library  at  an  expense  of  $1,581.00. 

Our  Young  Women's  Christian  Association 
Wins  Prizes  in  San  Francisco 

According  to  the  list  of  awards  published  in  the  Association 
Monthly,  Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  wins  two  first 
prizes,  and  three  second  prizes  in  the  Young  Women's  Christian 
Association  contests  held  in  connection  with  the  Panama-Pacific 
Exposition. 

First  Prize:  (i)  The  Association  having  the  largest  num- 
ber in  proportion  to  total  membership  enrolled  in  voluntary  Bible 
classes. 

(2)  Association  having  the  largest  attendance  at  the  weekly 
meetings  in  proportion  to  its  women  student  body. 

Second  Prize  :  ( i )  Association  having  largest  number  in 
proportion  to  total  membership  enrolled  in  mission  and  social 
study  classes. 

(2)  Association  whose  cabinet  takes  the  highest  grade  in  an 
examination  by  the  National  Board  on  the  Association  movement. 

(3)  Association  having  the  largest  number  of  girls,  in  pro- 
portion to  total  membership,  who  have  earned  Helen  Gould  Shep- 
ard  Bibles. 

The  Woman's  College  also  wins  Honorable  Mention  in  three 
other  contests.  These  contests  were  open  to  all  women's  col- 
leges and  co-educational  colleges  and  universities  in  the  country. 


3  0112105927658 


OULANCY-BOATWKiaHT  COMPANY,  t-VNCMBUlM,  VA. 


